Natlang Etymology thread

[Astraios]

Not really what I meant. I was talking specifically about the cumulative effect of using obscure words with disputed or outdated meanings for everyday objects or scientific concepts like "electricity". If nothing else, it must alter the mental picture that forms when you read a biblical passage.

I imagine Icelanders experience something similar when they're reading a saga and the word for "electricity" or "computer screen" pops up, and they have to remind themselves that the ordinary meaning of the word would be anachronistic in this context.

Oh, yeah. I'm not sure that that many were that drastically repurposed though, and definitely not to the exclusion of loanwords like Icelandic, especially for new technology. Off the top of my head I can think of 'screen' (veil) > 'screen' (computer), 'ark' (of the covenant tablets) > 'box' (for letters), for example, and both meanings are still active. "I put a screen between your bed and mine" vs. "I'll bring it up on the screen", "Moses thought the ark was pretty" vs. "It's in your (mail)ark", it's sorta obvious. Or 'party' (nightclubs) < 'assembly' (of a council). It's not such a stretch, though yes, I'm sure it does have a certain influence. In fact I know it does, I remember my professor of Semitic Linguistics in Jerusalem pointing out some grammatical thing in a Biblical verse and mentioning, "Oh and obviously it's not the modern meaning of (whatever), originally it meant (whatever)", but I've forgotten the word.

[clawgrip]

verb 动词 dòngcí "move word"
adjective 形容词 xíngróngcí "description word" from 形容 "description," from 形 "form/shape" and 容 "to hold/contain/appearance"
adverb 副词 fùcí "assistant/auxiliary word"
pronoun 代名词 dàimíngcí "substitute name word"
preposition 介词 jiècí "introduce/between word" (tbh can't really figure out which one is a "better" English translation)
conjunction 连词 liáncí "connect word"
interjection 感叹词 gǎntàncí "sigh word" from 感叹 "sigh" from 感 "feel" and 叹 "sigh"
particle 助词 zhùcí "help word"
classifier 量词 liàngcí "measure word"

So as you can see, very transparent. Many compound nouns in Mandarin are like this, actually, some a bit more creative than others.

Japanese 動詞 dōshi, 形容詞 keiyōshi, 副詞 fukushi, 代名詞 daimeishi, 助詞 joshi are all the same, but the others are slightly different:

preposition: 前置詞 zenchishi "word placed in front" (incidentally these don't exist in Japanese)
conjunction: 接続詞 setsuzokushi "connection word"
interjection word: 感動詞 kandōshi "(strong) emotion word"
classifier: 助数詞 josūshi "helping number word"

There are also a couple more interesting ones:
auxiliary verb: 助動詞 jodōshi "helping verb (move word)" this includes dependent verbal suffixes in Japanese; the main difference between 助詞 joshi and 助動詞 jodōshi is that jodōshi can be conjugated but joshi cannot.
adjectival noun: 形容動詞 keiyōdōshi "describing verb" this is a part of speech specific to Japanese. It's kind of weird terminology because the Japanese term implies it's a verb, when actually it's syntactically like a noun in that it always has to be used with some form of the copula.

[hwhatting]

I think German was on the road to make more extensive use of Funk- ("spark") but rather early on that became specialised to "radio-", e.g. funkgesteuert "radio-controlled" (lit. "spark-steered").

Yes, the usual German equivalent for Elektrizität "electricity" is Strom ("stream, current"), e.g. Stromerzeugung "electricity generation", Stromstoß "electric shock", Stromausfall "blackout", etc. But Strom cannot stand in everywhere, e.g. Elektro- is used for objects powered by electricity (Elektromotor "electric engine", Elektoauto "electric car").
In Russian, свет "light" can be used instead of электричество "electricity" in the context of household electricity provision, e.g. нет света "there's no light" does not necessary mean that it's dark, but that the electricity has been cut off.

[Rui]

Well you got 2/3 right, WeepigElf! The Chinese word for movie is indeed 电影 which literally means "electric shadow"

[linguoboy]

Well you got 2/3 right, WeepigElf! The Chinese word for movie is indeed 电影 which literally means "electric shadow"

Or "lightning shadow". Cf. 日影 "shadow cast by the sun".

Given the Chinese penchant for disyllabic compounds, 影 can mean "movie" all on its own, e.g. 影片 "film" (lit. "shadow slice"), 影院 "cinema" ("shadow court"), 影星 "movie star" ("shadow star").

Shadow plays have a long history in China and the word for them, 影戲 (戲 means "theatre" or "theatrical play"), was also applied to movies in earlier times. But 影戲院 for "cinema" is completely obsolete these days.

Incidentally, Japanese and Korean make use of a completely different compound, 映畵 "reflected image". (映 shows up in the Chinese compound 放映 "project [a film]". In Japanese and Korean, this means "televise".)

[Rui]

preposition: 前置詞 zenchishi "word placed in front" (incidentally these don't exist in Japanese)

I don't know how Japanese handles adpositions, but in Mandarin many words that fulfill the same role as prepositions in English are actually verbs (or nouns in cases of locatives like at, on, in, between, etc.) and still retain their verbal meaning as well:

跟 gen1 'with (comitative)' also means 'to follow' (ex: 我跟朋友出去玩 'I'm going out with friends' vs. 跟着我走 'Follow me')
用 yong4 'with (instrumental)' also means 'to use' (ex: 用英文怎么说？'How do you say that in English?' vs. okay actually this one is really tricky*)
给 gei3 'for (benefactive)' also means 'to give' (ex: 我给你买礼物 'I bought a present for you' vs. 请把瓶子给我 'Please give me the bottle')

and others I can't think of at the moment. This could explain why a) the words are so different in the 2 languages (if they treat them differently) and b) why the word for 'preposition' in Mandarin is kind of weird from a Western perspective, since this lexical category doesn't really exist in Mandarin.

*the line between these two is very blurred in English as well, as sentences like 我不会用筷子吃饭 can be translated as 'I can't eat with chopsticks' or 'I can't use chopsticks (to eat)' and both are common enough ways of expressing that in English too. It just so happens that Mandarin has 1 way instead.

[clawgrip]

Japanese particles (助詞 joshi) always come after the word they modify. They are not verbs, but their own class of word (mostly; the particle で de could be considered an adverbial form of the copula or a combination of a particle plus what I think is an auxiliary verb (助動詞 jodōshi)). Many or most of them can be used with both nouns and verbs: for example, the particle から kara means "from" when it comes after a noun and "because" when it comes after a verb. So this is why Japanese uses the specific term 助詞 joshi "particle" instead of using 後置詞 kōchishi "postposition", since, similar to what you said about Chinese, the lexical category "postposition" doesn't exist in Japanese.

[Rhetorica]

Speaking of poetic and/or quirky Chinese literal readings, can anyone validate this map?

[clawgrip]

A quick glance at a Chinese map seems to confirm it is legitimate. You have to remember though that the names are written phonetically, and the actual meanings of the characters are ignored. You'll notice for example that "orchid" (lán 蘭) appears on countries that end in "land" (your map has got Finland backwards though), and "profit" (lì 利) appears on the ends of Italy and Hungary. I think the only character that is used with its meaning intact is "country" ("land" in this map) (guó 國), and this is applied only to the countries most likely to have been relevant to China at the time the names were being determined.

[Rui]

Speaking of poetic and/or quirky Chinese literal readings, can anyone validate this map?

Yes, except they got Sweden and Switzerland (瑞典 rui4 dian3 'auspicious scholarship' and 瑞士 rui4 shi4 'auspicious soldier') confused and they got lazy in some of the "translations". By that I mean:

* There's some characters that have basically been replaced by others and are now only used in transliterating names, such as 斯 si1 (used for sC), 尔 er3 (used for -r and -l), and others, but on this map, they didn't translate it but instead just used its Pinyin.
* Also, especially in the case of 克 (ke4, used for -k/-c obviously), some characters used to have other meanings but have been repurposed for the metric system when it was introduced to China, thus weird translations like 'gram' for 克 when it also has a meaning related to 'ability'.
* In the case of "Russia," the characters have become synonymous with "Russia," and not really what they originally meant anymore. Thus, if you see the character 俄 it almost definitely refers to Russia and not to "suddenly, very soon". Unlike with other countries where the characters also retain their original meaning.

But to be honest, these literal translations are dumb because of the nature of Chinese characters. For most characters here it's really hard to translate them succintly into English the way they've done here (for example, Sweden's 典 which is translated as 'scholar' but is much more than that), especially when you take them out of their original contexts like they have done with the names of European countries. I was originally gonna write out each country with the Chinese characters and pinyin and corresponding translations but then I became disinterested. Just know that in basically all instances except for 4 that I can see (Iceland, Russia, Belarus, and Montenegro) the characters don't really "mean" those things in those contexts, they were just chosen for their phonetic values.

[Qwynegold]

What about Hungary? Does it contain a character for Hun, or is that just pinyin?

[Rui]

What about Hungary? Does it contain a character for Hun, or is that just pinyin?

Huh interesting. The first character of Hungary is 匈, and all my dictionaries say is that it's an archaic version of the character 胸 which means 'chest, breast' and is pronounced xiong1.

The interesting thing is that the word for "Hun" (like the nomads) in Mandarin is 匈奴, also known as the Xiongnu in China. So it seems to be another "Russia" case, I think, where it used to mean one thing but was replaced by a proper noun meaning. Or not seeing as how none of my dictionaries apparently acknowledge the "Hun" meaning of the individual character 匈

[Qwynegold]

Aha, I was suspecting that there might be something like that going on with it.

[linguoboy]

Just know that in basically all instances except for 4 that I can see (Iceland, Russia, Belarus, and Montenegro) the characters don't really "mean" those things in those contexts, they were just chosen for their phonetic values.

There's something of a partial translation in 盧森堡 for "Luxembourg". The last character, 堡, means "fortress" in addition to having the pronunciation bǎo (Cantonese bóu). It's the standard equivalent for the element -burgh/-burg/-bourg in place names, e.g. 匹茲堡 "Pittsburgh", 愛丁堡 "Edinburgh", 漢堡 "Hamburg"[*], 聖彼得堡 "St Petersburg". 盧 is most commonly a surname, but also has the meaning "black", so this could be read as "Black Forest Fortress". (Not geographically accurate--Luxembourg is in the Ardennes--but the standard Chinese name for the Schwarzwald is 黑森林 anyway.) Incidentally, the last of these contains another of these elements, 聖 shèng, which is used for every reflex of Latin sanctus, e.g. 聖馬利諾 "San Marino" (lit. "Holy Horse Profit Promise"; not sure why it was left off).


[*] Which, amusing, can be read as "Chinese Fort".

[Rui]

The whole 堡 thing reminds me also of 圣 sheng4 which means 'holy, sacred' and is used for transliteration of 'Saint' and 'San(ta)'. It almost sounds similar, too.

Edit- so I'm an idiot and didn't finish reading lb's post before posting this, ha...

[WeepingElf]

Speaking of poetic and/or quirky Chinese literal readings, can anyone validate this map?

What a cacophony of meaninglessness! But 'Lotus Orchid' for the Netherlands is charming. 'Moral-Land' for Germany is somewhat tacky, given what sort of things have been done in Germany's name ...

[linguoboy]

Speaking of poetic and/or quirky Chinese literal readings, can anyone validate this map?

What a cacophony of meaninglessness! But 'Lotus Orchid' for the Netherlands is charming. 'Moral-Land' for Germany is somewhat tacky, given what sort of things have been done in Germany's name ...

Bear in mind that that that name predates the founding of the modern state. What were they supposed to do, change it following the outcome of the Franco-Prussian War?

(In general, the older rules of transcription generally involved coming up with positive-sounding characters wherever possible. That's why, of all the characters pronounced ying, the one chosen to represent "England" was 英 yīng "outstanding" rather than, for instance, 癭 yǐng "goiter" or 蠅 yíng "fly [insect]".)

[Drydic]

What about Hungary? Does it contain a character for Hun, or is that just pinyin?

Huh interesting. The first character of Hungary is 匈, and all my dictionaries say is that it's an archaic version of the character 胸 which means 'chest, breast' and is pronounced xiong1.

The interesting thing is that the word for "Hun" (like the nomads) in Mandarin is 匈奴, also known as the Xiongnu in China. So it seems to be another "Russia" case, I think, where it used to mean one thing but was replaced by a proper noun meaning. Or not seeing as how none of my dictionaries apparently acknowledge the "Hun" meaning of the individual character 匈

It's quite appropriate that the Magyars be represented by a character associated with steppe nomads, considering they were steppe nomads for a good portion of their history.